Attorney turns Bible story into radio drama

These days, when someone produces a multimedia project, it frequently involves film or some other form of video, not an old-time radio drama.

But Springfield defense attorney Jon Gray Noll chose radio to adapt part of his planned book series about events leading up to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.

Three-plus years in the making, “Vein of Silver” begins an eight-week run Sunday as an original radio drama on WMAY-AM (970). (See accompanying information for broadcast times.)

Weaving in fictional and real characters, the story highlights the observations of a newly assigned and sympathetic Roman tribune, Cornelius Lucius Strabo (voiced by Greg Floyd).

But “Vein of Silver” is only part of an ambitious writing project by Noll.

The drama is based on the first half of the not-yet-published novel “Vein of Silver: Cross of Blood.” That’s the first of five books, going up to modern times, that traces the silver coins paid to Judas Iscariot by the Sanhedrin (a council that charged Jesus with blasphemy) for the betrayal of Jesus.

Why a radio drama? Noll said he wanted to experience the characters come to life: “How did they sound? How did they act?”

Using all local voice talent and directed by veteran radio personality Donald Schneider, with an original musical score by Martin Kuhn, Noll said he gave the actors “100 percent leeway in character interpretation.

“It was fascinating to see those developments,” Noll said. “The only times I corrected them was when they mispronounced a name.

“It’s like planting a seed and it grows up into a flower and you think, ‘Did I really plant that?’”

‘It’s a wakeup call’

A West Point graduate and inaugural member of the USA Triathlete Hall of Fame who practices law with his son, Daniel, Noll said his fondness for biblical history extends back to his Army days. That and several “personal experiences” led him to the writing project, which included input from several central Illinois religious leaders.

More attuned to writing legal briefs than fiction, Noll admitted his own critics at first “sliced me up like a Cuisinart. I slowly, slowly learned the process.

One of those characters, the fictitious Cornelius, is one of the centerpieces of “Vein of Silver,” a newcomer to Judea with familial ties to the province’s governor, Pontius Pilate. Noll walks listeners through Cornelius’ “blood initiation,” the brutal scourging of Dismas, a thief who will later be crucified alongside Jesus.

Cornelius’ accompaniment of Jesus to Golgotha, Noll said, changed the Roman soldier, who is the first to record all of Jesus’ “Seven Last Words on the Cross.” (According to Noll, the document, the “Cornelius palimpsest” — a parchment from which texts were usually scraped off for multiple uses — also contains the “Lost Sura,” an early version of the Qu’ran.)

Page 2 of 2 - “Judea was a tough world (in those times),” Noll said. “Cornelius came from a genteel society and all of a sudden he gets thrown into this (world).

“It’s a wake-up call for him.”

Introduced more fully to Jewish customs by an attendant at one of the bathhouses and haunted by his participation in Jesus’ crucifixion, Cornelius later lives as a Jew before his introduction to Jesus’ apostle Simon Peter, who baptizes him as the first Gentile Christian. (That part of the story, Noll acknowledged, is detailed in the 10th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.)

Continuing Judas’ story

As for the apostle Judas, whom Christians believe set the crucifixion in motion with his betrayal of Jesus, Noll surmised that Judas approached the Sanhedrin because he wanted Jesus exposed as the Messiah to make himself look like a sort of “kingmaker.”

“He’s ultimately played (by the Sanhedrin),” Noll said. “When he sees Jesus being abused, he realizes his mistake and goes and hangs himself.”

While Judas’ flinging of the 30 pieces of silver in the temple has been depicted by artists such as Rembrandt, Noll gives Judas’ death — and the fate of the coins — a new twist with new characters.

Noll isn’t ready to give up writing legal briefs just yet, but he said writing “Vein of Silver” has been energizing.

“It’s one of the most exciting projects I’ve participated in,” he said. “I hope that whoever hears (the radio drama) will have a greater understanding of themselves as relates to their own religious philosophy, whether it’s Christian or Jewish or Muslim.

“If that happens to one person, it would have been worth the time and energy.”